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Behind the Horizon Line
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TYPE: Narrative Short
GENRE: Science Fiction
STATUS: Pre-Production
LOGLINE
A Lebanese geologist contracted to extract resources from Mount Tamalpais becomes obsessed with the mountain’s secrets—questioning whether she’s lost her mind during the citizenship process or discovered a borderless portal.
SYNOPSIS
Behind the Horizon Line is a speculative mystery about Lara Saad, a Lebanese geologist mapping Mt. Tamalpais for extraction. Haunted by immigration pressures and dreamlike visions from the land, Lara's search shifts from data to meaning, revealing buried memories and resistance. A meditation on exile, the supernatural and the afterlives of borders.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
??The film's artistic approach blends naturalistic shooting with a deeply immersive soundscape to mirror Lara's emotional and psychic experience. By emphasizing natural light, shallow depth of field, and close-ups, the film offers an intimate portrayal of human subjects, while wide shots of Mt. Tamalpais ground viewers in the mountain's enduring and evocative mystery. This contrast between personal closeness and natural vastness is used to emphasize both the omnipresence of the mountain in Lara’s day-to-day and its transcendent power. The sound design is critical, using field recordings from Beirut layered with visceral soundscapes as a siren call from the mountain, leading Lara to the mountain’s portal. Sounds of home echo across the mountain, suggesting that Mt. Tam is not just one place but that it holds multitudes. GIS dream sequences (the software Lara uses to locate extractive materials from the mountain) become the way in which Tamalpais speaks directly to Lara– a recurring thread through the film which creates a subconscious, psychic tether to the mountain. The lack of the mountain’s chartability reflects its elusiveness and urges Lara to dig deeper. Layered with text messages, interrogative citizenship interviews, and investigators’ conversations about Lara’s life, the film’s narrative structure reveals a fragmented, shifting reality, evoking the tension between her past and present, her sense of self, and the systems that attempt to define her.
KEY CREW
Chisato Uyeki Hughes - Director
Chisato (Chisa) Hughes uses film to enable new forms of relating and worldbuilding. Their first film, “Many Moons,” asks questions about ghosts and placemaking today– looking at the history of Chinese expulsions in Humboldt County, where they grew up, and the webs of relation between Chinese people and Native people that formed out of / despite the violence of settlement. “Many Moons,” premiered at CAAMFest and has since acquired distribution with Third World Newsreel. Chisa will be directing their first fiction screenplay, “Behind the Horizon Line”, this summer 2025. Currently, Chisa’s work has been shown at UC Santa Cruz’s Sesnon Gallery and Institute for the Arts and Sciences, SF Moma, and at UCLA’s Film and Television Archive.
Ruth Anne Beutler - Producer
Ruth Anne Beutler is a filmmaker and producer originally from northwest Nebraska, now based in Santa Cruz, California. Current projects span documentary, narrative, and archival forms and center on justice, memory, healing, and embodiment. Her film practice is informed by her professional formation as a registered nurse and extensive experience in global emergency and community health settings. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz Department of Film and Digital Media.
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